Hello! Konnichiwa!

Welcome to Ballyclare Primary School and Tomei Primary School’s shared website. Our schools have been partners for 5 years. Within that time Ballyclare has hosted many visits from teachers in Tomei. Some teachers from Ballyclare have also had the privilege of visiting Tomei over the past number of years.

The pupils of our school have been in the honoured position of ‘virtually’ visiting Tomei on many occasions. We host video conferences at least once per term. We ensure that different children get the opportunity to participate throughout the year. You can read about our links on the “Communication” section.

We have been involved in two major projects this year and we hope this website will give you a better understanding of them. Our first project is WOW! This is an Eco Schools project that has proved very successful so far. All the children in Toyama walk to school each day. However, in Ballyclare we found that only 39% of our children walk on a regular basis. We are aiming to increase that percentage to 50%. You can read more about our project in the WOW! section.

Our second project is “The Egg That Hatched” - a joint story writing exercise between both schools. Tomei Primary School introduced us to the concept of the story and Ballyclare Primary School wrote and illustrated the first page. It was then transported to Toyama where the pupils added the second page. By the end of the project we had written 5 pages. You can see some samples of our stories in the “Stories” section.

Our partnership is growing as the years progress and both schools are very committed and excited about the future. We hope this website gives you a little insight into our International Project.

We are incredibly pleased to announce that our Japan mini-site was the Overall Winner in the recent Japan Foundation Webpage Competition! The prize consists of £500 cash, £300 worth of Amazon vouchers and £200 worth of Japanese resources.